New artificial intelligence models are being used to diagnose eye conditions and assist blind people in their daily lives.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 2.2 billion people worldwide suffer from blindness, and nearly half of those visual impairments could have been prevented or have yet to be addressed. Vision loss is only becoming more prevalent. Forecasts are for a 55% increase over the next 30 years.
New technologies have the potential to revolutionize the practice of eye care and improve the lives of millions of visually impaired people.
identify eye conditions
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of vision loss in the UK. There is currently no cure, and identifying AMD can take time.
“It takes 43 minutes for a human expert to evaluate a dry AMD retinal scan,” said Konstantinos Barakas, a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorefields Eye Hospital in London, in an interview.
“This will put a tremendous strain on clinical resources.”
But thanks to an AI-based “deep learning” system created by Barakas and his colleagues at the National Health Service and University College London, medical professionals can now identify dry AMD in two seconds instead of 43 minutes. became.
The AI was trained on 5,000 human-classified retinal scans and validated on 900 scans from different datasets. “In a busy clinic, it’s just not possible to do it manually,” says Balaskas.
“This is the value of leveraging AI.”
AMD isn’t the only one that can be identified with the help of AI. In 2018, researchers in London worked with AI company DeepMind (now owned by Google) to show that AI can analyze eye scans and assess more than 50 retinal diseases, making it as capable as a professional ophthalmologist. proved to be able to demonstrate
Since then, researchers have been training and validating the system to work for all patients.
University College London researcher Pierce Keane, who has been studying potential uses for AI, said artificial intelligence could reduce the burden on patients with chronic diseases such as AMD, leading to more efficient treatment. Sure.
Assistance for the visually impaired
Be My Eyes is a mobile application that has helped over 250 million visually impaired people since 2012. By chatting with volunteers around the world through the app, blind users can identify objects and better navigate the physical world.
With the release of GPT-4, a powerful large-scale language model by OpenAI earlier this year, Be My Eyes is a new version of the app that leverages artificial intelligence to instantly chat with users, answer questions, and offer advice. is testing. With GPT-4, Be My Eyes analyzes your surroundings and provides guidance through your phone’s camera.
“Basic image recognition applications only tell you what’s in front of you,” explains Be My Eyes CTO Jesper Hvirring Henriksen.
“They can’t make the argument to understand if the noodles have the right kind of ingredients, or if the object on the ground is more than just a ball and is a tripping hazard, and they can’t communicate that.” I can’t do it either.”
